Author: Sujan Patel

Introducing the Growth Mapping Podcast

Author Sujan Patel | 4 Comments | Podcast

I’m excited to announce the launch of the Growth Mapping Podcast, hosted by me and Aaron Agius, my good friend and the owner of a competing marketing agency 🙂

We’ve designed this podcast to be a no-BS guide to customer acquisition and growing your business. Each episode is 15 – 25 minutes long, and will cover one topic that will move the needle in your marketing efforts.

Episode 1: How to Get Backlinks from Some of the Biggest Websites in the World

Earning links from publications like Forbes, Entrepreneur, and the Huffington Post can boost more than just your website’s domain authority; it provides credible social proof for your product or company (“As Seen in Forbes…”), drives targeted referral traffic, and opens doors for relationships with other high-profile publications.

In our first episode, we discuss how to write content that even has a chance to earn these links, what kind of writers are good targets to start building relationships with, and best practices for actually connecting with them.

Episode 2: The Real Secrets to Getting Your First 100 SaaS Customers

Your first 100 customers are often the hardest to get. In our second podcast, Aaron and I dive into how to build buzz before your launch, strategies to bake marketing into your product, and the reality and potential payoff of co-marketing and building relationships with influencers.

Episode 3: How to Create 10x Traffic that Drives Massive Leads and Sales

10x content has been a staple of my content strategy for almost a year now. In this episode, Aaron and I discuss what 10x content is (and what it isn’t), the step-by-step process we use to create it, and how to promote it to earn links and rank for the high-volume search terms that make the investment worth it.

And if you like what you hear…

Head over to iTunes and leave us a review.

My 2016 Year in Review

Author Sujan Patel | 4 Comments | Recap

I dedicate this year to the people around me and teams I have had the privilege of working with.

Team: Colin Mathews, Alex & Paul, Robert Senoff, Jerad Maplethrope, Matthew & Daniel from Quuu, Kumar, Scott, Mark Lindquist, Cat Dix, Sophie, Nick, Tam and the list goes on..

Awesome People: Hana Abaza, Ty, David Nihil, Max Alt, Peep Laja, Neil Patel, Benji, William Harris, Rob, Sol (Aka Cookie Monster), Dan Martell, Oli Gardner, Johnathan Dane, Arjun Arora, Trent G, Morgan Brown, Noah Kagan, Hiten Shah and the list goes on

Each person contributed to my personal growth and influenced my decision or direction.

The Crazy:

  • Clarity. This year everything I was doing over the last few year started to click and make sense. I saw a clear path to achieve what was once broad & lofty goal.
  • Fun: Even though I worked harder than ever I had the most fun I’ve ever had
  • Fuzzy mission statement from 2014 and from my childhood became solidified
  • Replaced my skydiving hobby with buying & growing businesses (somehow I got bored of skydiving and I found the challenge of growing companies and all the hard work that goes into it to be fun)
  • Acquired 3 companies: Pick.co, Linktexting.com and Confidential (Shopify app)
  • Started a new agency: Web Profits
  • In negotiation for book deal (2018 publish date)
  • Created 56 videos. My last video shoot I created 7 videos in 58 minutes (record breaking)
  • I spent over 100 days on the road.
    • Absorbed some of the Aussie culture
  • Gave a talk at Stanford and convinced 1 student pursue his dreams.
    • His startup raised 3.5 million dollars
  • Broke bread with hundreds of smart people

The Good:

  • Learned to say NO! I say No to most things these days.
  • 392 Consulting Leads – Web Profits/SP Consulting
  • 8219 SaaS Trials
  • 2900 backlinks to Sujanpatel.com and all my sites
  • I personally get 100 mentions a month (3.2x increase)
  • My content generated 8.7 million pageviews
  • 29 Speaking engagements:
  • 2 speaking tours:
    • 11 Workshops in Sydney & Melbourne
    • 6 talks in 5 weeks (SF, LA, Sydney, Ottawa, SF)
  • ContentMarketer.io pivoted to Mailshake.com
  • Bought my dad a Telsa Model S instead of being douchy and buying myself a Ferrari.
  • 100 Days of Growth Book passed 40,000 copies sold

The Bad:

  • I pushed myself beyond my limits. It was emotionally taxing.
  • Narrow.io had a major outage that took 3 months to fix.
    • Because of the issue we lost 30% over night.
    • Jerad released a fix and we regained 80% of them in the last 10 days
  • FOMO. Because I say No to a lot of opportunities

The Ugly:

  • Gained 23 lbs since 12/31/14
    • Start: 130lbs
    • Current: 153lbs (double chin status)
  • Got sued for a patent infringement from a failed mobile app in 2014 🙁
  • Spent more on legal fees than on having fun
  • Spent way too much time in airports & on planes

Next Year:

  • Health: Diet & Exercise
    • I refuse to gain anymore weight
  • More Fun
    • Recently bought a Porsche 911 GT3 and signed up for 6 track days at Circuit of the Americas in Austin
    • Have a 4 day snowboard trip planned in January
  • I’m learning how to add humor to my public speaking
  • Help more people. Advisor, webinars, podcasts and increasing my transparency
  • 2 books
    • 1 on growth marketing in 2017
    • I’m currently working with a publisher for 2018 release. Early title is called: UnderdogS
  • Growth SaaS businesses by 3x (it’s simple, doable but freaking hard)

What’s your highlights & lowlights of 2016 and plans for 2017?

Why Videos Are My Favorite Form of Content & Behind the Scenes of Video Recording Setup

Author Sujan Patel | 15 Comments | Content Marketing

One minute of video is worth 1.8 million words.

Admittedly that stat is a little questionable, but there’s no arguing against its message: video content is powerful stuff.

So powerful that it has fast become my favorite form of content.

Here’s why.

Continue reading → Why Videos Are My Favorite Form of Content & Behind the Scenes of Video Recording Setup

What Taylor Swift & Jay Z Can Teach You About Content Marketing

Author Sujan Patel | 2 Comments | Content Marketing

These two artists are my top favorite musicians, if not my favorites. I love the music they produce for how it makes me feel, but I also know the work they put into their tracks and videos. I’m a fan of hard work and innovation, and I love that both Jay Z and Taylor Swift have developed such an influential presence from their own labors.

Content marketing is hard work as well, but I know that many of us can admit to letting things slide and resting on our laurels. You fall into a pattern of content creation that mimics a production line and you wind up churning out mediocre content that does OK.

But do you think either of these artists got where they are by just falling into a cycle of mediocre work? There’s a lot to be learned from what they’ve accomplished that can help you punch up your content marketing efforts.

Continue reading → What Taylor Swift & Jay Z Can Teach You About Content Marketing

10 Tools That’ll Help You Score Maximum Value From Your Content

Author Sujan Patel | 8 Comments | Content Marketing

Content marketing has grown into a vastly competitive landscape with more marketers and organizations creating content than ever before – and those numbers continue to rise. With more than 68% of content marketers pushing for original content over licensed content, having the right tools at your disposal can have a big impact on the visibility of your content and the number of leads it generates.

Continue reading → 10 Tools That’ll Help You Score Maximum Value From Your Content

The Step-by-Step Guide on How Sales Can Leverage Content

Author Sujan Patel | One Comment | Content Marketing

There has been a long-standing gap between sales and marketing departments. This misalignment can cause frustrations on both sides, and result in a great deal of wasted effort.

Marketing might be generating consistent leads for the sales team, but when only a portion of those leads close, they probably feel like the sales team is wasting opportunities and not bothering to follow up.

On the other hand, sales representatives might grow frustrated and feel like they could close more if marketing could just provide them with better-quality leads.

Do these conflicts sound familiar?

Continue reading → The Step-by-Step Guide on How Sales Can Leverage Content

The 35 Best Articles on Growth: Summer 2016 Edition

Author Sujan Patel | 2 Comments | Marketing

I’ve learned a lot in the last 20 years from “doing,” from first-time successes to lessons learned through trial-and-error. But some of the best things I’ve picked up along the way have come from time spent listening to others, reading articles, and having dinners with some amazing people.

A lot of the growth in our industry has come from the contributions of influencers big and small, and I’ve compiled a list of some of the best articles I’ve found (or that have been shared with me) so far this year.

Continue reading → The 35 Best Articles on Growth: Summer 2016 Edition

7 Simple Tips for Repurposing Your Best Content

Author Sujan Patel | 9 Comments | Content Marketing

Every time you create a piece of content, you’re working toward one or more goals – reach new audiences, build traffic, gain leads, create natural links, etc. (at least, you should be). And if a single piece of content has the ability to do that all of that for you, it’s in your best interest to get the most out of the content you create.

It stands to reason, then, that your old content offers just as much opportunity, if not more, than producing new content from scratch.

Continue reading → 7 Simple Tips for Repurposing Your Best Content

Why Your Company Isn’t Growing (And The Key to Finding Sustainable Growth)

Author Sujan Patel | One Comment | Growth Hacks

Growing a company isn’t easy. Hard work and sweat equity aside, it’s difficult to know what you have to do to achieve some measure of growth, because there’s a hundred thousand little things you could do to try and make the needle move.

I hear it almost daily in conversations I have with people on Snapchat or through email and text: “How do I approach growth?” “How should I drive growth?” “Should I buy Facebook ads?” “Should I use Quora to grow traffic?”

I love those questions when I get them, because it gives me the opportunity to help entrepreneurs, startups, and growing businesses do a course correction and shift their focus to where it should be.

Continue reading → Why Your Company Isn’t Growing (And The Key to Finding Sustainable Growth)